No Helping Hand From Former Bees Manager Allen

But he can’t afford any of the sentimental stuff this weekend. Not after the Spireites have suffered back-to-back defeats.

Those losses to Salford City and Barrow came with their assistant manager absent.

After suffering bleeding on the brain, Adrian Whitbread’s illness rocked the club.

But this weekend he is back and Allen hopes Chesterfield’s winning form will be as well.

“We have had two losses and that is a testing situation,” said Allen in his pre-match media briefing.

“We have had a difficult couple of weeks, on and off the pitch. We’re a unit.

“Having Adrian back on saturday will be great, but we will see how he goes, it is one stage at a time. “We have been in contact with the doctors and consultants to see how far he can go. Hopefully he will be back doing the warm up on Saturday.”

Allen isn’t unhappy with the club’s little dip - and says they were were super against Salford despite the late loss.

“Not many teams win their first three games after getting relegated, it is difficult to go straight away,” said Allen.

“The first three wins and clean sheets were good. I thought our best performance was against Salford, but individual errors cost us dear.

“We could have come away with the three points, we have been playing well and we are not far off, but we have got to improve. We will improve and there is more to come from all the players.”